Loyalist paramilitaries have been accused of hijacking a publicly-funded memorial park honouring the dead of World War I.

There has been an angry backlash to the placing of a stone commemoration to UVF members killed during the Troubles at the remembrance garden in the Village area of South Belfast.

The memorial park was built by the Housing Executive to replace a previous UVF memorial - at a cost of £22,000.

And housing chiefs have been prevented from entering the site after locks they installed on the garden’s gates were changed.

They say they are trying to reach an agreement with residents to have the UVF memorial removed from the garden.

SDLP MLA John Dallat said he was angered at the inclusion of the paramilitary memorial and called for it to be taken away immediately.

He said: “These people with a background for murder and mayhem have hijacked a project which I would have been very much in favour of.

“This focused on the First World War and provided the opportunity for something that both communities could identify with.

“To have a bunch of murdering thugs on the wall makes a mockery of that.

“Any elected representative needs to be concerned by this.

“We still have 43 peace walls in Belfast, we have an Executive which seems to limp along, and while those vacuums are there of course the UVF will try to reinvent themselves.

“It’s not acceptable to have non-elected thugs hijacking community projects.

“I have sympathy for people at the Housing Executive who I believe were hoodwinked.

“But that doesn’t mean it can stay - it has to go.”

But a unionist councillor claimed local residents had no issue with the UVF stone.

UKIP’s Bob Stoker told the BBC: “We are looking at moving on and putting the past behind us.

“We can’t go on whinging and complaining at every turn.

“It is in a local area that is not going to give offence to anyone, and I have not heard anyone making an complaints about it.”

A spokeswoman for the Housing Executive said there were no doubts when the garden was being approved that paramilitary imagery was banned.

She added: “Issues around expressions of cultural identity and sense of place, which manifest themselves in mural, monuments and flags, are extremely difficult and often dangerous to deal with.

“The Housing Executive has been at the forefront of moving towards more acceptable expressions of cultural identity and over recent years we have been working with others to roll out a successful programme of re-imaging.

“These have encouraged communities to move away from aggressive expressions of cultural identity to more inclusive, historically accurate and informative depictions of our history.

“Following requests from the local community, the Housing Executive supported the building of a garden in November 2013.

“It was built as a replacement for a previous garden which had to be demolished in the redevelopment area.

“The garden was developed and built according to clearly specified images and wording and constructed with only an entrance arch and two plaques which clearly depict references to the First World War.

“The garden was paid for jointly by the Building Relationships In Communities Programme (BRIC is funded through PEACE III) and the Housing Executive’s community cohesion budget at a total cost of £22k.

“Great care was taken, in consultation with the local community, about the design of this garden in order to ensure there would be no paramilitary imagery included.

“The contract clearly stipulated this. The wording agreed and installed clearly relates to World War 1 and reflects similar memorials across the island of Ireland and beyond. In fact the wording on one of the stones was taken directly from the Theipval Memorial.

“For over a year the local community has enjoyed the use of this garden and to date we have not received any complaints.

“We are disappointed that since its construction, other images have been added to the garden.

“We are now trying to reach agreement with the local community to remove the additional images which were not agreed with us.

“The lock currently on the garden was not provided by the Housing Executive.”

Last year there was outrage after a UDA plaque was placed in another remembrance garden paid for by the Housing Executive.

The plaque was attached below a permanent memorial to soldiers killed in the Great War.

The garden was originally given £11,000 funding by the Housing Executive, which said it provided the money after residents requested an alternative to UFF imagery in the area.